Yet he's careful to present the government's case, and to include interviews with the DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., and the lead prosecutor, Polly Greenberg. James was introduced to the story by a friend of the Sungs, and spent most of his time with the family.
#Abacus chinese trial
Yu became the chief witness for the prosecution, and the trial process lasted five years.
They reported their suspicions to banking regulators, and were rewarded with the indictments. Thomas Sung even once halted a bank run with the aplomb of James Stewart's George Bailey.Ībacus' managers did eventually learn of Yu's activities, and fired him and two others. Shanghai-born but all-American, Thomas Sung is a devotee of It's a Wonderful Life, an affection James could hardly help but exploit. That includes Jill Sung and Vera Sung, the English-speaking, Connecticut-raised sisters who had inherited day-to-day operations from their father, one of the bank's founders. Also, Yu spoke a dialect that even most of his fellow Abacus employees didn't understand. His activities were hard to track, because, as the film explains, Chinatown residents are more likely to make cash transactions than the average American consumer. The problem was a loan officer, Ken Yu, who asked borrowers for bribes and falsified income statements for mortgage applications. In fact, the bank had one of the lowest default rates in the country. The Chinatown-based bank also didn't package its mortgages into the sort of financial instruments that made The Big Short's machinations so arcane. It should engross most viewers, even those who've resisted learning what a subprime mortgage is.Īs it happens, Abacus didn't deal in subprime. That's because his Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is a compelling non-fiction thriller. The case was little covered at the time, and while its outcome is a matter of public record, James prefers that reviewers not reveal whether the verdict was guilty, innocent, or mixed. In May 2012, New York's district attorney brought charges against Abacus Federal Savings Bank and 19 of its employees. Hoop Dreams director Steve James is here to say that's not true. Vera Sung, Jill Sung, and Thomas Sung in Abacus: Too Small To Jail.įrom the pages of sober financial journals to Hollywood's slapstick-econ adaptation of The Big Short, commentators often note that no American banks were indicted in the wake of the 2008 financial cave-in.
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